Confessions of a Master Swordsman
by Heather Logan
Summary: Hiko Seijuurou loses his cool when a mishap befalls his young apprentice. (complete)
1. Default Chapter

** Confessions of a Master Swordsman **

A Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction by Heather Logan 

(Disclaimer: This was written for fun, not profit. The characters belong to Nobuhiro Watsuki.)

* * *

** Chapter 1 **

I am Hiko Seijuurou, the thirteenth of that name and master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu. I am not known for being easily perturbed. But a fortnight ago, something happened that made me lose my cool. It involved my idiot apprentice. But you probably already guessed that. 

The day started innocently enough. It was a lovely autumn morning, crisp and cool, and the maples all up and down the mountainside blazed with color under a pale blue sky. An excellent day for training. But first, I had an errand for my apprentice to run. 

"Hey, Kenshin," I called. The kid hurried over. 

The kiln had cooled overnight. I opened it up and lifted out a work of art. It was a small cylindrical cup of thin ceramic, patterned with indentations all around and glazed an exquisite pale green. I had spent the past couple of weeks making it, on and off. 

I handed it to Kenshin. He took it reverently in both hands, his eyes wide. 

"Take this up to the shrine at the top of the mountain," I told him. "Then run through your kata and do three hundred sword swings. Be back in time for lunch." 

"Hai!" He slung the training sword across his back -- even at ten years old, he's still too little to carry it at his waist -- and set off at a run, slipping the cup into his shirt as he went. He'd better not break it, was all I thought as he disappeared up the forest path. 

o-o-o 

He wasn't back in time for lunch. I waited for him for half an hour or so, then went ahead and broiled the fish. Fine, I thought, if he doesn't want lunch, he doesn't want lunch. 

He wasn't back in time for afternoon training. I was starting to get annoyed; I'd wanted to start him on a new kata today. I figured he'd gotten distracted. He has a tendency to space out at times, and the view from the top of the mountain is extraordinarily beautiful, especially at this time of year. I drank a little sake, and repainted the eaves of the cottage. 

When Kenshin still wasn't back by late afternoon, I was seriously annoyed. What could he be doing? Did he intend to leave the morning's laundry out past sunset? That's it, I decided. I slung my cape over my shoulders and set off after him. 

I was, perhaps, just a little worried. 

o-o-o 

As soon as I saw the bridge, I knew something was wrong. 

It was an old bridge, had been old even when I was a student, and there was nothing extraordinary about it. It was just a typical flat wooden bridge with a low railing on one side, spanning the gorge of the river that ran fast down the mountainside and away to my right. It was made of pine or cedar or something like that, the wood long since gone a smooth papery gray. The construction was typical -- two long beams to span the gorge, crossed by planks separated by two-inch gaps to save on materials. Nothing with wheels would make it this far up the forest path; smoothness was not a requirement. 

Near the middle of the bridge, the gap was at least a foot wide. One of the planks had broken; half of it was still hanging from bent nails off the long beam on the left. 

I stepped onto the bridge -- carefully, though the rest of it appeared to be sound -- and crouched down to examine the damage. There was nothing much to see. The plank had simply succumbed to old age, splitting along a diagonal. 

A small dark mark on the edge of the next plank caught my eye, and I reached across the gap to scrape at it with a fingernail. Blood. Dried, but not old. I narrowed my eyes. Stuck in it were two strands of red hair. 

The cold wind sighed through the trees, sending flurries of red and yellow leaves drifting through the open air on either side of me. The water rushed on fifteen feet below, deep and smooth and dark, hurrying in its journey from the mountaintop to the distant sea. 

o-o-o 

I worked my way down the steep hillside, the rushing water on my right, scanning every yard of the river for signs of my apprentice. The training sword was heavy; most likely it would have sunk, I thought, but it could have wound up in one of the tangles of branches caught at intervals by the protruding rocks. My best bet would have been the bright flash of a bit of clothing against the darker wood. Or of Kenshin's bright red hair.... 

But I found nothing, except for a piece of wood bobbing among yellow leaves in an eddy in a curve of the near bank, too square and regular to have been natural. I fished it out. It was a piece of plank, about eight inches wide and a foot and a half long, a pair of nails still stuck in the square-cut end. The other end was split at an angle where the grain curved sideways around a knothole. 

With a sudden battle yell I hurled the plank into the air and whipped out my sword. I'd turned my back to the river before the splinters hit the water. 

I glared at the trees for a few seconds, my teeth clenched. Then I took a deep breath, resheathed my sword, and turned back to the water. There was nothing else to do. I continued working my way downstream, scouring the river with my eyes. 

Fifty yards on, I saw something. The river curved away from me at that point, leaving a muddy overhang on the near bank and a broad sandbar on the other. The smooth curve of the sand was scuffed and disturbed. 

I crossed the river in three jumps, using the protruding spray-slicked rocks as stepping-stones, and quickly surveyed the shore. The sandy soil held tracks well. There was a large impression here, scuffed like it had been crawled upon, and a little further on, a sandal-print. Kenshin's. 

I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer of thanks to the god of the river. Kenshin may be an idiot, but he's the only apprentice I've got. He'd been here. He hadn't drowned. 

But of course. It was I who had taught him how to swim. 

o-o-o 

It had been a nice hot day early in the summer of last year. I'd had Kenshin practising sword swings for most of the morning, working on his footwork on the marshy ground next to the pond. Not the small pond below the waterfall at my main training ground -- it would be crazy to try to teach a kid to swim in that, the undertow's too strong. It was the larger pond, a little further downstream. 

We'd stopped to take a breather. 

"Kenshin," I'd asked him, "do you know how to swim?" 

He didn't. No surprise there. 

"Well," I said, "think about how you would do it." This is an excellent teaching technique. I developed it myself. I use it constantly when teaching sword techniques. When you're a stupid student, it's important to think before you act. 

Kenshin looked out at the pond, his expression abstracted. I gave him a couple of seconds to think about it. Then I picked him up and threw him into the water. 

He promptly sank, flailing around uselessly below the surface. After a minute or so I started to think I'd have to wade in there and drag him out, to keep him from drowning. Pathetic, but I didn't want to lose my apprentice over something so trivial. Fortunately, at that point he started to get it together -- he got his head above water long enough to get some air -- so I didn't have to get my clothes wet. 

It took an excruciatingly long time, but eventually Kenshin made it to the edge of the pond. He dragged himself out onto the grass and lay there, coughing the water out of his lungs. 

I waited. Education can't be rushed. I let him get his breath back, let him climb shakily to his feet. 

Then I picked him up again and threw him back into the middle of the pond. The look of incredulity on his face as he hit the water was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. 

By the time I'd stopped laughing, he'd managed to thrash his way over to shallow water. He tried to wade out, fell to his knees when the water was no longer deep enough to hold him, and crawled the last few yards. His arms were shaking. As soon as he was clear of the pond he flopped down on his stomach and lay still, eyes closed, breathing like it was all he ever wanted to do. 

I nudged him with my foot. "You didn't try to breathe the water this time," I observed. "That's an improvement." 

We went back to sword drills after that. Kenshin kept quiet, obviously annoyed, refusing to meet my eyes. Silly. I knew he'd be grateful later. 

The next few days passed as usual, but with one small difference. Kenshin started getting up a half-hour earlier than usual and disappearing before his morning chores. He made no comment on it, and neither did I. But I was curious, so I went out for a stroll to see what he was up to. What I found surprised me. 

Kenshin had left his clothes folded near the edge of the pond. He was just reaching the far side when I spotted him. 

He was practising. I was impressed. After his reaction to his first swimming lesson I'd figured I'd have to force him back into the water. But no. This was good. 

I oughtn't have been surprised. After all, I'd chosen him as my apprentice. And I am an excellent judge of character. 

Kenshin touched the far bank, turned, and saw me. I nodded toward him. 

"Show me," I said. 

With a look of concentration, he started back across the pond. Along its longer diameter, I observed. He thrashed inefficiently through the water, much more slowly than he ought to be able to, wasting a lot of effort trying to keep his face above the surface. A couple of yards from the near side, his feet found the bottom and he stopped to look up at me, sloshing his arms back and forth under the surface to keep upright. 

"Keep your legs straight when you kick," I told him. "And move your arms like this." I demonstrated the crawl. "Breathe to one side." I nodded toward him again. "Try it." 

He did, working his way across the pond and back again. 

"Your form's awful," I told him when he'd returned. "Keep practising. Be back for breakfast in twenty minutes." 

He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded back at me. There was determination in his eyes. And he was smiling. 


	2. Chapter 2

** Chapter 2 **

I hitched up my cape and crouched down, the heels of my boots half in the water, and began to read the soil. It was pale-colored, sandy, its surface still faintly pocked by the rain that had fallen three nights previously. Ideal for tracking, even in the fading light. I softened my gaze, letting the tracks tell me their tale. 

Kenshin had washed up here, where the water ran more slowly along the inner curve of the river's bend. Parallel drag-marks led up from the water's edge -- he'd pulled himself up out of the current and then lain there for some time. The sand was indented, much scuffed in different directions, recording motions overlaid in time. I could see the imprints of creased fabric, here a round depression from a knee, there a partial handprint. 

He'd bled onto the sand. I edged forward to take a closer look at the darkened patch of soil, sacrificing the tracks closest to the water. I'd read those already; they had no more to tell me. I frowned, digging down into the sand with one finger. It looked like a lot of blood, but it was impossible to tell since it had mixed with an unknown quantity of water coming off of Kenshin's clothes as it soaked into the ground. Worrying. Nevertheless, he'd been in good enough shape to walk away. The sandal-print was proof of that. 

The sensible thing would have been to follow the river back up to the bridge and then head for home along the forest path. Indeed, he'd started up in that direction. But the sandbar ended in a steep muddy embankment, too steep to climb and too high to jump. Kenshin had left scrabble-marks in the mud among the stringy exposed roots, drying now around the edges. I checked the moisture content of the soil. A few hours old, no more. 

The far riverbank was less steep, but I'd seen no footprints on that side. I bounded back across the rocks to check. Indeed, Kenshin hadn't crossed the river. I frowned, looking back at the stones, kept wet by spray as the water broke around them. Kenshin is a good jumper; he could have made it across just as easily as I had. Unless he'd been hurt badly enough that he wasn't willing to risk it. I rubbed at the traces of blood still on my fingers. 

There was one other obvious way to get back to the cottage. The steep embankment just upstream from the sandbar was simply the local manifestation of a shoulder of rock that runs along the mountainside for miles. The road down the mountain to the village below cuts through it, a mile and a half or so downhill from my cottage. If Kenshin couldn't climb the embankment here, he could certainly cross it on the road. 

I recrossed the river and checked for prints leading into the woods. Indeed, Kenshin had headed that way. I nodded approvingly. I've made sure that he knows these woods like the back of his hand. 

Under the trees it was already quite dark. The sun had disappeared behind the mountain some time ago, and now the sky had faded to a dull slatey blue streaked with dimming yellow clouds. I could smell the faint scent of woodsmoke from the cooking fires in the village at the mountain's foot. 

Kenshin may have made it home in the time I'd been searching. In any case, I wouldn't be able to track him in the woods in this light, not without a lantern. I turned back toward the water, and something caught my eye. The wind was picking up again, sending yellow fans fluttering down from the ginkgos and tumbling something small and light across the sandbar. Indeed, this patch of sand held one more bit of information. 

I picked up the piece of thread that had caught my eye and inspected it. It was blue, cotton, still kinked into a square zig-zag from being woven in fabric. Kenshin's shirt, almost certainly. It was the right shade of blue. And the ends looked like they'd been cut. 

It was with raised eyebrows that I jumped back across the river and began to retrace my steps toward home. This meant two things. First, that Kenshin had cut up his shirt, presumably for bandages. Second, that he hadn't lost the training sword. 

o-o-o 

It had been four months after I brought Kenshin to live with me. I'd started him out on sword drills almost immediately -- it seemed to take his mind off of what had happened before -- and in that time he'd slowly built up the strength and confidence needed to start sparring. 

At least, he'd built up the strength to swing a sword a hundred times. That didn't mean he'd learned how to hold on to it. The first jolt when my sword impacted his sent the training sword flying out of his hands. 

"Rule number one," I told him. "Don't let go of your sword. If you lose your sword, you die." 

His eyes were wide. "Sorry!" 

"And don't apologize." 

"Sorry!" he said again, and ducked to retrieve the training sword. 

I shook my head, bemused. I supposed it must be hard for him, with such tiny hands. But the world won't go easy on you because you're small. No, it will pick you out as an easier target and go after you preferentially. That's the purpose of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu: to protect the weak, and to be a force for justice in the world. I think Kenshin realized that, even then. Perhaps that's why he's trained so hard, from the very beginning. 

Kenshin had gotten back into position, his small fingers tight around the hilt of the training sword. We started again. He managed to hold on to the sword for an entire set. I raised my eyebrows, and ran through the prescribed moves a second time. Kenshin still had his sword. He didn't drop it again for the rest of the day, or the day after that. 

On the third day, I started Kenshin's sparring lesson shortly after lunch. I'd been down at Junichi the farmer's place that morning, and he'd as much as ordered me to marry his daughter. The nerve! It wasn't as if I'd gotten her with child or anything. I'd told him to dream on, and he'd told me to shove off. Understandably, I was in a pissy mood. 

I ran Kenshin through the set of moves once, twice. Kenshin seemed pleased with his competence, minimal though it was. That annoyed me. On the third set I interrupted the pattern ever so slightly, slipping in an extra quick motion: I flicked my sword downward and tapped Kenshin on the fingers with its blunt edge. 

The training sword thudded to the ground. Kenshin had jumped back, clutching his fingers. He looked horrified. 

"Idiot," I growled, feeling oddly guilty. "What did I teach you?" I resheathed my sword roughly. "If this were a real fight, you'd be dead." I turned away and started back toward the cottage. 

"Shishou." 

I glanced back. Kenshin had picked up the sword, and was standing ready to resume the drill. There was a kind of desperation in his eyes. What was he, I wondered, some kind of masochist? I sniffed dismissively and started to turn away again. 

"Shishou, please. I won't drop it again." 

I turned back to face him, annoyed again. "You want to learn how to hold on to a sword?" 

He nodded, but there'd been a slight hesitation. He was scared. Good, I thought. I strode back across the training ground and started the same drill again, without any further words. I kept to the prescribed motions, watching Kenshin's reactions. When I reached the point in the pattern at which I'd whacked his fingers before, I saw him falter, just a tiny bit. He recovered almost immediately and continued as if it hadn't happened. The second time through he didn't flinch at all. By the third time he'd fallen into the rhythm of the drill. 

On the second move of the fourth set I snaked my sword around and hit him on the fingers again, this time of his left hand. He jumped back, biting off a yelp, but he'd managed to keep ahold of the sword. 

"Use the tsuba," I told him. "That's the metal thing between the hilt and the blade. It's there to protect your fingers. Or you can move the sword up or down, so I don't hit your hands." 

He looked down at the sword, uncertain, as if he was trying to work out how to do what I'd just told him. 

"Let's go," I said, and started the drill again. I kept up the speed and intensity, pushing him to the edge of his primitive abilities. Every few sets I went for his fingers. I kept it random, avoiding any pattern. He had to learn to see the unexpected, to see a strike as it came, to not be hypnotized by the rhythm of the drill. 

By the end of the training session he was on the verge of tears, his fingers bruised and swollen. But he hadn't dropped the sword again. He'd even managed to block a couple of my swipes at his hands. And he hadn't asked me to stop. 


	3. Chapter 3

** Chapter 3 **

I hate tracking. It's so tedious. But Kenshin hadn't made it home yet when I popped back for the lantern, and it was this or sit at home and wait. 

I gave the sandbar another cursory look before starting into the woods. Kenshin really should have been more careful about leaving tracks. He'd made it much too easy for me. A student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu shouldn't leave such obvious signs of his passage. I decided I'd have to teach him tracking, so he'll know how to cover his own traces. Next time, he could do the tedious work. Just as soon as I found him. 

Kenshin's sandal-prints led from the fine sandy soil of a tracker's dream to the fallen leaves of a tracker's nightmare. You might think that fallen leaves make an easy surface for tracking. You would be wrong. They are one of the most difficult. Only bare stone and pine needles are worse, and I would get a shot at the latter as well before the end of the night. But of course, a tracker as skilled as myself is not bothered by such a thing. 

I followed his trail into the forest, holding the lantern up above my head to simulate the angle of daylight and to avoid dazzling my night-vision. The last of the twilight was still fading from the sky, but under the trees it was already completely dark. 

There's a trick to tracking on fallen leaves, as much as on any difficult surface, and it is to keep your eyes off the ground right in front of your feet. A skilled tracker can pick up the slight variation in the pattern of fallen leaves caused by another's passage, and it's easier at a distance when the varied mosaic begins to blur together. There was a limit to the range of my lantern, so it wasn't as easy for me as it would have been by daylight, but it was still straightforward enough. For the most part, I could guess which way Kenshin had gone just by looking at the lay of the land, and assuming some minimal sensibility on his part. And there are more signs than just footprints to track a person by. 

He'd kept mostly to the level, cutting across the slope of the mountain and keeping the sharp rise of the embankment to his right. Sensible, indeed -- it was exactly what I would have done. But the terrain was not entirely cooperative. The so-called level was cut by small ravines and blocked by thickets and tangles of fallen trees. A mile and a half into the woods, Kenshin had clearly been struggling. At first, he'd hopped lightly down into the ravines and climbed straight back out of them, disturbing the leaves only a little, but as his trail wore on he'd started sliding down the embankments and scrambling out with difficulty, leaving big swathes of displaced leaf-mold and ending up a little further downhill each time. He'd started detouring around the denser thickets to the downhill side, too, and continuing along the new level rather than working his way back up. Not too smart; he'd have to make up that elevation anyway when he finally hit the road. 

I couldn't be that far behind him -- three, four hours at the most, judging by the age of the marks I'd seen at the riverbank. And I'd no doubt been gaining on him coming through the woods, although I'd seen no signs that he'd stopped to rest for any length of time. I paused to listen. You'd be surprised how well sound carries at night. But the wind had picked up, sighing through the dark treetops and masking any distant noises. The temperature was dropping, too, the stars glittering diamond-bright through the gaps in the forest canopy. It was turning into another chilly night. 

I couldn't help worrying. Kenshin had gone out in short sleeves and thin trousers, expecting to work up a sweat, and by all indications he'd cut up his shirt as well. And he's too little. He'd get cold fast. He's grown three, four inches in the two years since I found him, but still he's much smaller than the other boys his age down in the village. He's no taller than the seven-year-olds. Unless they're breeding a generation of giants down there, that's not normal. 

I'd like to blame the slavers for starving him and stunting his growth, but they'd only had Kenshin for half a year. I had to blame his parents instead. Unfairly, of course; they had no control over the famines. Unless he simply came from a family of short people. I had a vision of a village populated entirely by tiny red-heads. Creepy. I shook my head to clear it. Must concentrate on tracking. 

Indeed, there were more signs than just footprints. The occasional broken twig I would expect, especially from a stupid student with no tracking experience of his own. But the handprint in blood on the smooth trunk of a maple was too much. Was he trying to leave a trail? And if so, for me or for the scavengers? Honestly! 

I glanced back at the big tangle of fallen trees that I'd just hopped across. For Kenshin, it must not have been quite so effortless. The blood on the treetrunk was still tacky. Two hours old, give or take. I quickened my pace. 

Finally, finally I reached the road. There were more skid marks in the leaves, where Kenshin had slid down the slight embankment from the forest floor onto the hard-packed clay. I scanned the surface of the road, shifting mental tracking gears. There, a hint of a sandal-print in a patch of dust. And another drop of blood. 

Two hours it had taken me to cover those two miles of forest. Two hours! I looked up the empty road. A mile and a half from here to the cottage, over easy terrain. 

I cursed out loud, thinking I should have sat at home and waited after all. I had a sudden vision of Kenshin, alone, bleeding onto the floor next to the cold fireplace, and broke into a run. 

The cottage was dark. Not unexpected. But it was also empty. Kenshin hadn't made it this far. 

Stupid, stupid! I'd allowed myself to get rattled, and it had spoiled my judgement. I'd just wasted twenty minutes, forty by the time I would pick up Kenshin's trail again. If I'd tracked him like I should have done, it would've taken me forty-five minutes, tops, to cover this distance. Kenshin hadn't made it this far, and he'd clearly left the road again. As I ran back downhill, I already knew why. 

o-o-o 

We'd made a trip down to Arashiyama toward the end of July to see the cormorant fishing. If you haven't seen this, it's worth a trip. They do it at night, by torchlight, with the leashed cormorants diving in a wild flurry for the fish that they never get to swallow. It's quite a spectacle. Still, even if the birds do most of the work, it's an awful lot of trouble just to catch a few fish. Give me a fishing rod at the pond any day. 

And boy does it attract the crowds! Kenshin spent the whole day walking around in a daze, goggling at everything with those big eyes of his. I'm sure he saw more people that day than he'd seen in his entire life. He'd never seen a bamboo forest before, either. 

Normally I don't like crowds. They're too noisy, too messy, and too annoying. But summer festival crowds mean girls dressed up in their finest, and are therefore marginally acceptable. Clusters of yukata-clad beauties would gather to whisper behind their festival fans as we passed. Finally one approached me, blushing prettily. 

"Your son is very cute," she said. 

I twitched an eyebrow. "He's not my son," I growled. "He's my apprentice." I'm hardly old enough to be Kenshin's father; I would have been only fourteen when he was born. And I was a little annoyed. A future master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu shouldn't be 'cute'. A future master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu should be tall and strong and handsome, like myself. This is not just for aesthetic reasons. There are important techniques that require it -- the tall and strong parts at least; my own shishou seemed to get along fine despite looking like a horse -- charging attacks that require weight, multiple-strike attacks that require arm strength. I'm starting to despair of Kenshin ever having either. I work him to exhaustion every day, make sure he gets enough to eat, make sure he sleeps well, but still he never seems to grow any muscles. It's a good thing he's fast, or he'd be hopeless. Speed, more than anything, is the heart and soul of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu. 

By mid-day this had happened half a dozen times. Who knew a cute little kid was such a babe magnet? But Kenshin was cramping my style, so I sent him off to the bamboo forest to do his kata and a couple hundred sword swings. He seemed relieved to get away from the crowds and do something familiar. And anyway, my own god-like physique is magnet enough. 

In any case, we left late, after the fishing, and walked all night and into the next morning. By noon, Kenshin was getting pretty worn out, so I decided we'd stop for lunch and a bit of a rest. He agreed eagerly, and started to set down his travelling gear at the side of the road. 

"I see my idiot apprentice wants to stop on the side of the road," I commented. 

Kenshin stared up at me, clearly at a loss. "Um. Yes?" 

"Such a nice place to stop, the side of the road," I continued, my voice heavy with sarcasm. "An ideal place to sit and watch the world go by. And what will my idiot apprentice do if, say, a group of bandits happens by and decides that he looks like an attractive target?" 

He gaped at me. Obviously he wasn't thinking too clearly after having been up all night. That's something he'll have to work on. 

"Well?" I prompted him. 

"I could fight them--" 

"Idiot!" 

"Or run away?" 

"No! Never limit your options like that! What if you were injured, or sick, or even just tired like you are now? It's always better to avoid the fight. You stop off the road, where you're hidden from view. That way you choose whether anything happens, not them. You choose whether you're going to fight any bandits that come along, or whether you're going to let them walk on without ever having seen you." 

"I see." Kenshin looked chastened, his eyes downcast. 

"And if you do choose to fight them, this way you have the initiative. You have the element of surprise. When I saved your life, do you think those bandits saw me coming? Not a chance." 

Kenshin nodded. He'd closed his eyes, looking a little sick. 

"And you don't fight if you don't have to. Even if they're bandits, a life is still a life. You know that." 

He nodded again. 

"Good. Now come on." I started into the forest at the side of the road. "I'll show you how to find a spot that's hidden, comfortable, and still has a good view." 


	4. Chapter 4

** Chapter 4 **

I'd let the lantern go out in order to run. I could have hunted for Kenshin's trail as I made my way back down the road, but that would have slowed me down, and this way is faster in the long run. When tracking, it pays to be methodical. I relit the flame and started again. 

It was faster going here than it had been in the forest, especially since I was now looking for only one thing: where Kenshin had left the road. And I promptly gave up on being methodical. There was no need to track his every footstep; all I needed was to find some trace every several yards that told me he'd still been on the road. When the trail ran out, I'd know where to search for him. 

I held down my panic. It had already wasted me forty minutes, and I couldn't help feeling that every one of those minutes counted now. I'd seen no sign that Kenshin had stopped to rest while crossing the forest. That he'd stopped here, when he was almost home, on the easiest part of the walk.... 

The trail ran out just a mile from the cottage. I stopped, listening hard as I turned back to pick it up again. He must be nearby, though I could hear only the wind in the trees. 

"Kenshin!" I yelled. "Kenshin, can you hear me?" 

"Shishou! I'm here..." 

I felt a rush of relief. His voice was faint, but surprisingly close by, just off the left side of the road. He was still alive. 

I hopped across the ditch and onto the embankment. It took me a second or two to spot him; he'd hidden himself quite well under the dense lower branches of a fir tree. 

"Don't move," I said, and lopped off the tree at its trunk, kicking it aside and showering Kenshin with a flurry of fir needles. 

Kenshin was trying to sit up. "No, don't," I said, setting down the lantern and crouching next to him. "Just lie still." He subsided back onto the ground, looking up at me with wide eyes. Under the streaks of dirt and blood his face looked worryingly pale. 

I looked him over quickly. He seemed to be in one piece, at least, and he hadn't cut up his shirt after all. He'd only cut the tails off, so that it still provided some minimal warmth, though he couldn't tuck it in and it was hanging open in the front. He'd used the tails to bandage his right leg, which had bled rather badly. Other than that, he seemed to be in reasonably good shape, aside from cuts and scrapes and some painful-looking bruises. The fact that he was still alive meant there wasn't any serious internal bleeding. 

"I'm sorry," he was saying. "I broke your cup." 

I paused to follow his eyes. The fine ceramic was lying in three pieces in the fir needles in front of him, beside his sword. He'd carried the pieces back all this way. 

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I can make another." I felt his scalp, checking for head injuries. He had a goose-egg just above his forehead -- probably where he'd whacked it on the bridge as he fell -- but nothing else. Lucky. He'd managed to avoid the rocks. 

"Shishou," he said again, "I didn't make it to the mountaintop." He was trying to sit up again. I pressed him down gently. 

"It's all right," I said. 

He looked a little agitated. "I shouldn't have fallen. I should have been more careful. If I'd jumped faster--" 

"No, it's all right," I repeated. "You did very well." No obvious sprains or broken bones -- anything like that would have swelled up in the past twelve hours and would be hard to miss. Some pretty serious bruising on his left shoulder and down that side of his back. He'd probably hit a rock after all. The broken ceramic had gouged him in the stomach. That's the downside to carrying things in your shirt. His skin was awfully cold. 

I glanced at Kenshin's face to see how he was doing before moving on to his bandaged leg. He was watching me, his eyes big and worried, looking like he was about to say something. I untied the cloth and quickly unwrapped his leg. He tensed, wincing. 

"Sorry. It'll just be a minute." I inspected the gash on his thigh. It looked horrible, ragged and uneven and covered in blood, but on second glance I could see that it wasn't all that deep. It was angled in such a way that walking had kept pulling it open. It must have hurt like hell. Since Kenshin had been lying still, though, it had pretty much stopped bleeding. 

I couldn't treat it properly here. I pulled out the roll of gauze that I'd grabbed when I'd stopped by the cottage for the lantern and bandaged up Kenshin's leg again. Then I laid my cape on the ground and lifted him onto it, wrapped him up and scooped up the whole bundle into my arms. I swear, that cape must weigh at least as much as he does. 

"Doing all right?" I asked him. He'd yelped when I'd moved him, and was still trying to catch his breath again. His breathing sounded a little off. Water in the lungs? 

"I didn't make it home..." His voice was faint. 

I picked up the lantern and Kenshin's training sword and started briskly up the road. "You did fine, Kenshin," I said, in a soothing voice. "I've got you now. We'll be home soon." 

I'd expected him to nod and relax, but instead he stared up at me, looking stricken. Had I just tweaked his bruises or something? I shifted my grip on him. 

"Shishou? Am I going to die?" 

I almost dropped him. "What?!" Sure, it must hurt a lot; sure, he was cold and tired; but his injuries weren't life-threatening. He should know that. But then, he'd probably never been hurt like this before, and he'd therefore be looking to me for a judgement of how serious it was. And I had said... 

'Don't worry about it. I can make another.' 

I had said... 

'It's all right. You did very well.' 

I had said... 

'I've got you now. We'll be home soon.' 

Good grief! I'd said THAT? No wonder he was worried! Well, no more. I glanced down at him and raised an eyebrow. 

"Die? You'd better not. Not till you've done your kata and those five hundred sword swings." 

It took a moment for this to sink in, and then Kenshin's eyes widened. "Five hundred? But this morning you said--" 

"Ah yes, of course. I said six hundred, didn't I." I seriously doubt he can do six hundred sword swings in one day. His arms will feel like they're falling off by four hundred and fifty. 

He stared at me for a second or two, and then I felt him relax. "Hai," he said, and smiled a little. 

o-o-o 

"You should watch this if you can. Kenshin?" 

Kenshin opened his eyes. He'd dozed off while I was carrying him home, and I'd laid him on some blankets next to the fireplace while I built up a nice fire and got my first-aid stuff ready. 

I started unwrapping the bandages on his leg. "I said, you should watch this if you can. It's something you'll have to learn sooner or later." 

He tilted his head slightly to get a better view -- rather unenthusiastically, I thought. His eyes looked dull and clouded. 

I inspected the gash in his leg again, thinking out loud for Kenshin's benefit. "It looks like this was made by a broken branch in the river. Yes?" 

"I don't know," Kenshin whispered. 

"Hah. You should pay more attention to that kind of thing. It can be important." I tilted his leg to get a better view. "I'll have to make sure there aren't any splinters left in here. That's an infection risk. Or any dirt from the riverbank." I slid a towel under his leg and dunked some gauze in hot water. 

"Did you try to wash this out before you bandaged it?" I asked him as I started cleaning out the wound. He gasped and shuddered, squeezing his eyes closed. I stopped. He looked awfully pale, and his breathing had gone ragged and forced. Maybe I'd have to teach him this later. 

"Or you can pass out, if it makes you feel better." 

"...thank you..." he whispered. 

He kept his eyes closed after that. But I don't think he actually passed out until I rinsed the gash with sake. 

o-o-o 

Great stuff, sake. A hundred and one uses. I sipped the last of it from my cup and smiled sardonically. 

The jug was empty. I'd used almost all of it on Kenshin's leg, plus his other less serious cuts and scrapes. I'd be damned if I was going to let his wounds get infected. Doing the stitches had been nice and easy. There are some benefits to knocking out one's patient. 

Kenshin had come round an hour or so after I'd finished. He'd seemed disoriented and in a lot of pain, in no condition to do anything but sleep, so I'd forced him to drink some medicinal herbs and lie back down. He'd drifted off again soon after. 

I wasn't too worried. Kids heal fast, and my apprentice seems to be especially durable. I've never even seen him sick, in the two years that I've had him with me; even I caught a cold once in that time. But somehow I just didn't feel like sleeping that night, so I stayed up and kept an eye on him. 

o-o-o 

By the following morning, Kenshin had developed a horrible cough which shook his whole body and sounded like his lungs were full of mucus. I'd thought his breathing had been a little off the night before. I watched him, and waited, and worried about pneumonia. I was sure by then that he'd gotten a lungful of river-water, and he'd been borderline hypothermic when I'd finally found him by the roadside. 

But aside from the cough and a mild fever, nothing else happened, and even those had subsided by the third morning. His wounds were well on the way to healing, and of course with my medical skills there was no infection. He couldn't get out of bed yet, but by then he was alert enough, so to keep him busy I decided I'd teach him how to read and write. No way am I going to bring up an illiterate as my apprentice. It turned out he already knew the hiragana -- his parents had taught him; who knew? -- so I started him right out on the simpler kanji. And when his head was as full of kanji as it could get in one day, I showed him how to sew and had him mend his clothes. 

He was back on his feet after a week. I wouldn't let him do his kata yet -- he was still limping badly and I didn't want him to do any more damage -- but I gave him permission to practise sword swings if he could avoid hurting himself in the process. Then I headed down the mountain to do some shopping. I needed rice and miso, and most importantly more sake. 

When I got back, Kenshin was lying sprawled on the ground, training sword still in one hand, gazing up at the afternoon sky. I raised an eyebrow. 

"I thought I told you not to hurt yourself again," I said. 

"I'm just resting," he replied, sitting up with some effort. "I'm not done yet. That was only four hundred and eighty." 

My other eyebrow joined the first. "I see," I said. Of course, he was completely useless the day after that, since his arms were so sore. So I taught him a bunch more kanji. No use just having him lie around. 

o-o-o 

It's been a fortnight now, two weeks since Kenshin's little misadventure, and he's finally stopped limping. It's certainly about time! I'll teach him that new kata this afternoon, and tonight we start on tracking. But first, I had something to deliver. 

Though I couldn't teach Kenshin much while he was laid up, I hadn't been wasting my time. I'd done some experimenting with my glazes, trying new blends and firing them up in batches on scrap pottery to test the colors. I'd found one I was happy with -- a subdued blue, almost violet, the exact color of Kenshin's eyes. That color went on the new cup. And this time, I carried it up the mountain. 

I'd repaired the bridge, a few days ago. Normally that was the kind of chore I'd have Kenshin do, but maybe I'm still a little paranoid. I very carefully checked the rest of the planks for soundness, something I wouldn't normally have done. 

The last stretch up to the shrine is a long flight of stone steps, hundreds of years old. I had Kenshin sprint it, as usual, watching his motion carefully for any sign of remaining soreness. When he reached the half-way point, I started after him. 

He beat me to the top. By six steps. 

"Not bad," I told him, as I stood around letting him catch his breath. "You're getting faster. I'll have to give you less of a head start next time." 

Kenshin smiled up at me. He looked genuinely happy. Probably just glad to be out and running around again. 

I couldn't quite help smiling back. He may be an idiot, but he's the only apprentice I've got. 

--Owari-- 


End file.
